J1516

I find it odd to say that MTV entertains the mass public because I don't know a single person it entertains. The only good thing I saw on it was a commercial for ( ) and a 20 (or maybe 10) minute beck concert that they actually managed to screw up.
And hey I have an idea, lets state something extremely obvious.
Let me assure you guys, music is in no way a problem right now. As a matter of fact it's getting great now. Pop stars are going way down and rock is being revived by the strokes and the white stripes and the hives. Things are changing right now and definitely for the better. As pitchfork media said, there's no such thing as a bad year for music. 2001 was considered a terrible year for music, but man, a couple of the albums from that year are some of the best I've ever heard.
I think KoRn started it after they sucked and decided that that suck would continue. My god it's been 5 albums right? He said he'd cheer up (or at least make something a little more orriginal than the first album) at the end of the album, but damnit, that doesn't sell. Please don't try to give KoRn any credit that would make them seem in any way "inventive." I mean god, the best song on that album was a song about how he was made fun of as a little boy.
And I can't say much for popular rap, except that Outkast's Stankonia really isn't that bad. And rap in general really isn't that bad. Whoever thinks that hasn't heard much Public Enemy or Kool Keith (man it's really odd that he'd choose that name when he's so not mainstream. Really everyone download Blue Flowers Revisited and Technical Difficulties right now. If that doesn't change your idea about rap then you're just a bastard).
The music industry is doing fucking great. I mean lets look at some of the releases this year: ( ), Sea Change, Source Tags & Codes, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Murray Street, Playthroughs, and the absolutely fucking essential re-release of Slanted & Enchanted (if only the nirvana album had a live show, all of nevermind, plus a few ep's worth of material on two disks...). If you're worried about the music industry you're not looking hard enough for good music.
I used to think that the music world needed some revival but let me assure you that it doesn't. I remember thinking, man The Fragile's going to change the whole scene, and it was great but nothing happened. One year later, man Kid A's going to change the whole world of music. It's one of the best albums of all time, but nope, nothing happened. Then one year later, Lateralus is going to change the world, the mass media is going to be saved from crappy nu metal by this incredibly important album. Guess what, the world of music just got worse with that album. I'm not saying it's bad, but I'm saying that... well Hoobostank says Tool influences them. It's odd that rock revival is what's actually changing the world right now. But you know what, all three of those years were amazing years for music. Three of my absolute favorite albums have come out in those three years.
And you know what I've noticed. Everyone on this board is just saying how tool are the saviors of the music industry when they're not focusing on anything else. I'm fine with the current state of music.
And I think you need to check your numbers. First of all, what do you think Pop music is? You mentioned The Beatles. The Beatles wrote all of their songs. And The Beatles are one of the best bands ever. Pink Floyd was pcp, they wrote all of their songs. The Beach Boys are pop, Brian Wilson wrote all of Pet Sounds. The Flaming Lips, Beck, Bjork, The Microphones, , all of them are pop, and all of them write all of their songs. True, a lot of my favorite bands are appreciated least, but I wouldn't want high school kids saying "oh man, did you hear the new Circulatory System album. Man it's phat." I know some of you have this utopian vision that if only your favorite bands were the most popular bands in the world (oh, bythe way, tool is one of the most popular bands in the world right now. If you think that tool and radiohead are not popular then you are in 8th grade). but let me tell you about a band, and I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with them, that came from an indie scene, became popular, but ultimately fucked up the music scene more than helped it. They're called Nirvana. They made great music. Some of the greatest music in the world, but I'm sorry, today a whole lot of popular bands just rip them off after watering down everything that made them great. I assure you guys, post rock would not work well if it became the most popular thing in the world.
Trust me, it's not extremely important for tool to keep writing. Music is going to continue to produce some of the greatest stuff you've ever heard. Tool are not the saviors of music, because music doesn't need to be saved.
And Paraflux, you should feel ashamed that you know that information on Limp Bizkit.

(Funniest thing any of you said: "Pioneered by great bands, like 311")